Not Applicable.
Not Applicable.
The present invention relates to outer garments worn by medical assistants and the like for delivering primary care and emergency treatment to patients, and in particular, to a medical assistant outer garment configured with multiple organizational pockets for securing and carrying medical instruments and health care consumable products in an accessible and logical arrangement.
Medical assistants, such as hospital or trauma center nurses or interns traditionally function in a medical facility to assist a primary physician or medical professional by providing daily patient care and administering directed treatments. To carry out these tasks, a medical assistant often utilizes a limited set of medical instruments, such as bandage scissors, a stethoscope, or a thermometer together with a basic collection of health care consumable products such as alcohol swabs, sterile dressings, surgical tape, and disposable syringes.
Traditional medical assistant""s garments, commonly referred to as xe2x80x9cscrubsxe2x80x9d or xe2x80x9csmocksxe2x80x9d provide a jacket, vest, or shirt with simple single-compartment left-side and right-side pockets. These pockets do not include any internal partitions or compartments, and hence, items placed therein quickly become jumbled and disorganized, rendering it difficult for the medical assistant to rapidly locate a needed medical instrument or health care consumable product. This can result in wasted time, as it is often easier for the medical assistant to retrieve a needed item from a central supply then it is for the medical assistant to try and carry all of the needed items in the limited pocket space available in a conventional scrub or smock.
Larger items, such as a stethoscope are commonly carried looped over the medical assistant""s neck when not in use. Carrying a stethoscope in this manner can become uncomfortable over time, placing a small but continuous strain on the medical assistant""s neck. Additionally, a stethoscope loosely hung about a medical assistant""s neck is prone to dropping or sliding off during an examination of a patient when the medical assistant may be leaning to one side or bending over.
Several garments for medical personnel have attempted to provide solutions for carrying larger medical instruments, such as stethoscopes, when not in use. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,154,888 to Krohn discloses a pair of scrub pants including a single elongated pocket extending down one leg. The pocket of the ""888 Krohn patent is designed to hold a fully extended stethoscope when not in use. Alternative garments including components for holding a stethoscope are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 4,637,075 to Ingrisano et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 5,072,456 to Elin. With these garments, the stethoscope is carried about the wearer""s neck, in a traditional manner, but is secured along the midline of the wearer""s shoulders with a pair of quick release retaining loops, such as Velcro(trademark) strips. While such systems aid in retaining the stethoscope in place, they does not provide for convenient access, as the quick release retaining loops must be released and refastened each time the stethoscope is removed or replaced. In addition, the systems shown in the ""075 Ingrisano et al. and ""456 Elin patents fail to alleviate the weight of the stethoscope from the wearer""s neck, and are prone to permitting the stethoscope to slide around the wearer""s neck.
Accordingly, there is a need for a medical assistant""s outer garment which provides convenient and easily accessible support for commonly utilized medical instruments, such as a stethoscope carried in a traditional location on the wearer""s body, which alleviate at least a portion of the strain associated with carrying such medical instruments, and which include multiple pockets for carrying and organizing commonly utilized health care consumable products in a convenient manner.
Briefly stated, the present invention provides a medical assistant torso outer garment which is configured with multiple organizational pockets for securing and carrying medical instruments, including a stethoscope, and health care consumable products in an accessible and logical arrangement. The medical assistant outer garment preferably includes a pair of double pockets which are disposed adjacent the neck opening, on left and right sides of the front of the garment. Each double pocket consists of an outer pocket sized to receive the binaural portion of a stethoscope, and an inner pocket sized to receive the chest portion of the stethoscope, such that both ends of the stethoscope are retained within a respective pocket when the stethoscope is placed around the wearer""s neck. At least one organizational pocket assembly is further disposed on the front or side of the medical assistant outer garment, and includes a large inner pocket and multiple fitted pockets associated with the large inner pocket. Each of the fitted pockets is sized to receive one or more health care consumable products in an accessible manner.
The foregoing and other objects, features, and advantages of the invention as well as presently preferred embodiments thereof will become more apparent from the reading of the following description in connection with the accompanying drawings.